![[0067] The Trial](/comics/2009-06-12-[0067]-the-trial.png "[0067] The Trial")
The current story arc started with this strip: Addicted.
A Sandra and Woo strip without Sandra, Woo, or any of the minor characters. o_O
Remember that Sandra and Woo updates three times this week. So don’t miss Wednesday’s strip: Compromise.
EDIT (13 June 2009): I changed the sentence of the principal in the last panel after some concerns about the use of the word counselor in the comments.
- Medical advisor: … and that’s why, from a medical viewpoint, a ban on insulin is utter nonsense!
- Superintendent: Thank you for your statement, Dr. Feynes. I’m going to announce my decision after a short break.
- Principal: That was an impressive plea. No doubt the school board is going to lift the ban on insulin now.
- Medical advisor: Thank you for the compliment.
- Principal: Yet, I’m somewhat confused.
- Medical advisor: What? Why?
- Principal: BECAUSE YOU ARE MY MEDICAL ADVISOR!!!
- Medical advisor: Looks like we have another victim of Zero Tolerance. Namely, of my own zero tolerance against lethal stupidity, boogerbrain!
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What do you call 500 infected lawyers?
Supernintendo Walsh? 😀
Also, wish more people had that lawyer’s personal Zero Tolerance policy.
Is the strip name a reference to Kafkas’ novel of the same name?
@ Unsilenced: A good time in L4D.
I’m not sure exactly what happened in frame 4, but it ended with the principal being called a booger brain (lol), so i feel happiness and a sense of completion 😀
I also like to think of frame “zero” being the ace attorney saying “it’s not a recreational drug, it’s medicine, you bunch of klutzes!”
boogerbrain? How very Ozy and Millie and with an arc relating to messed up workings of a school system, a fitting tribute 🙂
I’m not entirely sure that this guy gets too many clients this way (he must have some really freakin’ AWESOME commercials)
A lawyer’s responsibility is to protect the client. Even if it’s against the client’s own stupidity.
Maybe this lawyer was protecting the school from getting sued instead? Rofl, highly amusing. ^_^
I’m not sure whether you mean to protect him from damaging his own school, but if not… it’d be evil and inexcusable to actually defend him.
“Supernintendo”? 🙂
I like him already.
I get the feeling I’m missing something, though. Isn’t he the school counseller? (aka the psychiatrist/psychologist?)
And what also bothers me is the principle’s use of the word “were”. Did he just fire him? =P
SuperNINTENDO Walsh?
*snicker*
*snicker*
*bursts into a laughing fit, then slowly comes out of it*
Oh man, you set that up, didn’t you? Oh, good one. But seriously, that lawyer must be good. I wish there was a lawyer that good for as to why responsible children and teenagers aren’t allowed to carry any form of self-defense except maybe pepper spray.
xD
Supernintendo was the funniest part! =)
@DarkStarZN: “counselor” can mean “lawyer.” Therefore, after the trial he is no longer the counselor for the school, thus the use of the past tense.
In the last panel, is ‘boogerbrain’ (I don’t know his name) trying to say that Dr. Feynes was the one who told him to set up the policy in the first place? Or who advised him to enforce the policy against insulin specifically? The second one is funny, the first one is just confirmation that ‘boogerbrain’ is the correct name (and makes him look even worse for then yelling at his lawyer for no reason), and as it’s written, it just makes no sense at all (you have to guess why ‘boogerbrain’ is mad at his ‘counselor’).
I somewhat suspect that the term ‘counselor’ is being misused — it either means ’emotional helper’ or ‘lawyer’, and the title “Dr” wouldn’t often be used for a lawyer. I think you meant “advisor”, but it would be better to have made him say something like “BUT YOU SUGGESTED THIS BAN IN THE FIRST PLACE!”
…hmm, it’s still not working for me. Perhaps it needs more than one line changed.
I think sometimes an advisor is brought into discussions like this to argue the point of one side more eloquently than the ‘defendant’.
Still funny though. I just wish more people had that kind of zero tolerance policy.
@Wm Tanksley It does seems like he was brought on as the Principal’s lawyer for this one event, to uphold the zero tolerance policy, despite being a doctor. Could be more like an expert witness too, which would explain his un-lawyer like behavior.
I don’t really understand the confusion, but here is some additional information:
Dr. Feynes is a medical scientist, not a lawyer. This is not a court which should be clear.
Dr. Feynes was hired by the principal as his counselor/advisor/expert witness/whatever to defend the school’s position at the school board meeting.
Dr. Feynes accepts, but since the principal’s position is so incredibly stupid, he “betrays” his client this way at the school board meeting.
Bwahaha, better than playing Phoenix Wright. :3
I think “Because you were supposed to be on MY side!” might make it clearer.
Supernintendo Walsh. Lethal stupidity. I love it!
Oh, and Novil, in a school context, “counselor” means a sort of psychologist that talks to kids having a hard time. Their job is basically to find out if a student is misbehaving, bullying, or feeling upset because he/she is going through a difficult situation at home, and manage to get them to work around that to get their school work done.
Thus, “You were my counselor” becomes a rather wierd thing for a principal to say, unless he’s referring to having been “sent to the counselor” in his childhood.
I think the meaning you’re looking for is legal counselor, but you already said that Dr. Feynes is not a lawyer, so you can’t really use that either
Medical Advisor
Check that, “Medical Consult” I believe is the term.
I believe in this case, Dr. Feynes was supposed to be acting as expert witness and *counsel* for the Principal, but argued against his own side. Largely because his client is a boogerbrain who was going to get someone killed. And I agree.
Wow, and I thought I was pedantic.
If you look closely at the sign on her desk it says SuperNintendo Wash. For those of you who don’t know that was a joke from the Simpsons when Ralph Called Super Intendent Chalmers SuperNintendo Chalmers. Nice job 😛
ah, with that clarification, can i add my own suggestion for the principal’s outburst?
“because you’re OUR school councellor!” (or school medic, or whatever)
makes it a bit clearer that he’s working for the school board – and through them, the principal – rather than being someone *treating* the principal 🙂
AFAIK this clarification may also propagate into german if i’m remembering my ich / ihr(en) / etc properly.
also…. i’m guessing if the following one was originally in english, this one was originally in german…
“so” doesn’t work in _entirely_ the same way for both languages 😉 unless the councellor is supposed to be broadcasting an air of “do i look like i care” in frame 3. a plain “oh” would probably cover it better.
A really solve to problems…
tahrey has it right, the “So?” in the third panel implies indifference, that he doesn’t care that the principle is confused, and is awaiting a response explaining why he should be concerned with the previous statement, as opposed to what was probably intended to be a response of mild surprise “Oh?” or “Really?” or perhaps, if you were really going to keep ‘So’ it would have to involve a more complete sentence, like “Is that so?”
Overall, I think that this particular strip lacks some important exposition from the beginning, specifically the medical adviser’s actual job and his direct relation to the principal both within the context of the trial and outside the context of the trial. Further, I have to question why the principle was given to the impression that the medical adviser was going to support the principle’s position, or why the adviser had not first discussed the medical necessity of Insulin with the principal privately. As the supposed medical adviser to Mr. Principal, they should discuss the argument before ever setting foot in the hearing.
But my biggest issue with the setup of this strip is that it is not obvious to the reader as to why this situation is ridiculous (even given the context of the preceding strips). How does “I am confused because you are my medical adviser!” explain why he should be confused (I know that is not how it is written, but that is how it is understood within the dialogue)? How does the principal’s initial understanding of the situation conflict with the adviser’s actions or explanation? Besides the fact that the principal is just that stupid, is he confused because he still doesn’t understand the medical adviser’s argument? Or is it because he thought the adviser was going to support his argument to ban Insulin, when in fact the adviser opposes the ban? Or is it because as an adviser he was supposed to set the principal straight long before the issue even came to this (as should have been the case)?
As much as exposition can be boring, reading a story without a clear understanding of what’s happening is no fun either, as is a punchline without a setup. This really could have used a whole other strip to set it up, and it might have gone something like this (sorry to retroactively hijack the story arc):
-Introduce the medical adviser as a character, and establish his occupation and professional relation to the principal outside the context of the trial by having the principal ask him for his expertise in the matter to support the ban in the hearing (this might take two panels to accomplish)
-the adviser’s response to the request, which should set up the principal’s false expectations as to what the adviser will say at the hearing (should be self-explanatory and take only one panel)
-time-lapse to the last panel
-the adviser begins his argument, which is then completed in the next strip (as you have it above). The full explanation itself is understood to have occurred between strips.
And yes, it really is supposed to be spelled, “adviser” (gives advice), like “runner” (runs), “skater” (skates), or “driver” (drives), not “advisor”, like “supervisor” (gives supervision), “translator” (gives a translation), “protector” (offers protection), or “editor” (responsible for editing each edition of a publication before being published). The rules are there, and they make sense, but just why the rules make sense is not as clear. I would have to dig even deeper to fully explain this discrepancy and compare all possible forms of each word to show why the base words are different. This is why English is such a hard language to learn. Many people who were born and raised speaking English as their native language live their whole lives without ever learning how to speak or write it correctly.
Wow. That was certainly quite a bit longer than I originally intended.
Of course I’m pedantic. I belong to the International League of Pedants. And it’s “Principal”, not “principle”. The former runs a school, the latter is something you believe in. This definition does not preclude the metaphysical possibility that one can negate the existence of principals by refusing to believe in them.
The New Oxford American Dictionary says, “The spellings adviser and advisor are both correct. Adviser is the more common spelling in North America; advisor is more common in Britain.”
Love those spelling where there is a grey area, or is it gray?
You must understand the principle that the principal is not your pal. A principle yields no interest, which I find odd since I could care less about the principal.
LOL!! I’ve ALWAYS accidentally read superintendent as Super Nintendo! I had to read that little sign at least 3 times to make sure I was reading correctly!
@ Thowell3:
Man I never catch this stuff, glad there is commentary here so I can learn to appreciate these references.
@ Autismdegree:
The monster population these days IS getting out of hand…
What the…? Supernintendo Walsh? XD
Tell me I’m not the only one who was hoping for a Phoenix Wright reference with a comic whose title is “The Trial”. X3;
It’s not hard to understand… “Medical Advisor.” An ADVISOR of MEDICAL issues. So, presumably the man who tells the principal what to do in medicine-related issues. Of course, the fact that Mr. Boogerbrain suspended Larissa for being a diabetic shows simply that he didn’t CONSULT with his advisor in the first place, since any person with more than two braincells (or, at least, more than two brain cells NOT made of semi-solid mucus) would be able to tell the principal that (a) insulin is a PRESCRIPTION DRUG only, and (b) that a diabetic, like Larissa, could DIE without insulin. Effectively, it’s more of a dietary supplement than an actual drug, and so the principal’s “Zero Drug Policy” is ironically – and stupidly – misapplied here.
Sorry about the little med student rant ;D
Chrono Trigger The Trial Music is perfect for this scene
I always thought superintendent looked like supernintendo
Who else saw the supernintendo reference?
And that’s a great problem with bureaucrats in a nutshell; they retain “advisors” not to give them advice, but simply to appeal to their authority and pretend that they are supported by experts. “Government experts” have been fired in the UK for daring to point out that cannabis is not nearly as dangerous as the party claims. They don’t want real experts who will tell the truth, they want yes-men who will agree with what the party decrees. I imagine the sitution to be similar in the US and Europe.
@ Unsilenced:
A good start?
People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don’t realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
Coyoty wrote:
Especially against a clients stupidity.
Nothing damages a case faster than the clients own testimony,